Am I weird because.....

Willow isn't crated. . .but it's a personal thing.  I don't think there's anything wrong with it.  It all depends on the owners preference and the dogs behavior.  Sometimes I leave Willow the whole place to herself other days I gate her into the kitchen or extra bedroom.  It all depends on her behavior, if anyone will be stopping by while I'm gone, the heat. . .

Sasha is the ONLY dog I have ever got a crate for, the reason? Ahhh we like having a house to come home to!


  Seriously!


  I have emailed other people who have web sites dedicated to their wolf/dogs, they say the SAME thing! its like they are saying, you left me! How dare you leave me! Just for that I am going to tear up everything you like! She even ate the BIBLE!


  LOL!


  I got a kick outta that one, I said its because it was made out of leather, hubby said no its cause she really is a devil dog. LOL! Awww poor baby.


  No I didn#%92t punish her for doing that stuff either, I just looked at her and she would look down at the floor, looking up at me half way looking really ashamed but not completely sorry.


  Soooo enter crate, I got the biggest one I could find! Its so big my 6 foot 225 pound husband can fit in it! He said it was rather comfy too! LOL!


  The only time we crate Sasha is if no one will be home to watch her.


  OH! And we learned something the other day!


  I have tried and tried to get Sasha to howl for me! She will do it but really low! The other day Jeff and I were on a date, only two kids were home but they were in the attic looking through the Halloween costumes, don#%92t ask me why, kids are kids. Anyhow, they said they heard this noise looked at each other then crept down out of the attic half way and there was Sasha in the middle of the hallway landing howling her little head off!


  She thought she was alone!!!   Isn#%92t that cute!!! I wish I could have heard it!

I agree that it depends on the dog.  We confine ours to the front hall and the upstairs hall and the three bedrooms (so they aren't allowed in the living room, sunroom, kitchen, or dining room unsupervised).  I know that sounds like a lot of space, but it is the only way  that Lady will behave.  Buster and Max give us no problems when we are out, but given full rein of the house, Lady will get into the trash and poop and pee wherever she wants.  For some reason, the slight restrictions we have keep her in line. 

Eevee gets free run of the house, but Shippo is crated. I'm still deciding if I'll keep it that way or start letting Shippo have free run once he's reliable enough. Even if I DID start, how the heck do you make that kind of transition? When I got Eevee I was 15, and my dad wouldn't allow me to crate train her, so she's always had free run of the house.

Ours is crated at night ( he seems to love it) and when we go out.  He hasn't done any damage in the house but he could eat an entire couch in about 15 minutes if he wanted so definitely not worth the risk.  He gets lots of exercise and I work from home so its not like he's in there a ton.  But he is such an intense powerful chewer that I just wouldn't risk it

Gypsy is crated at night (bed time) and when I am at work. She is free any time any of us is home.  If I leave her crate door open at bed time, she comes and gets me to close it!  She then sighs happily and snuggles down into her bed.  It's like she's finally "off duty" and can relax.

Also, my crate at home is large enough for a BIG dog and she is a medium (on the large size of medium, but medium none the less) girl.  Believe me, there are crate you could put a PONY into if you wanted to,  So Pamdb, you can get a crate large enough if you need one! []

Samwise and Ruby are crated when we're not home and sometimes for naps.  Ruby is now sleeping on our bed at night and we're having no problems with this.  I'm a very light sleeper so I can hear her tags jingle even when she's just repositioning.  She's never once asked to go out and I haven't found any surprises so we're happy about that.  Samwise, on the other hand, still sleeps in a crate at night and he will continue to do so until he proves to be trustworthy.  He's just a baby, though, so we're not worried about it. Xeph, I don't think you're weird.  It appears that your decision to responsibly crate your dogs is the right thing for you and your dogs.  Not everyone will understand.

we adopted kira, and she is 5 y/o and had never been in a crate... we put up a gate in a room for her one time, but she actually seemed more nervous with the gate than anything... since then we have given her the freedom of a room, she takes out her toys when she wants to, but most of the time she sleeps... i think she sleeps about 12-16 hours a day, but we do walk her about 1-2 hours a day and play with her too...

We dont create kian, but when we are sleeping he is confined to the kitchen, as we do get accidents, & when we go out he is either confined to the kitchen or on a very long lead outside, with plenty of water & choice of shades, i guess he is spolit!!

My younger dogs, and Doug the Dog, are crated when not supervised. Why Doug, though he is going on six years old? Well, since he thanked our giving him more freedom last summer by eating

Cereal
Crackers
Macaroni and Spaghetti noodles
Flour
Sugar
Rice
Molasses (kept dropping the jar until it broke, apparently)
Various items from the fridge
Bird seed
Kitty litter
Various joint supplements, both liquid and tablet
1000 garlic/vitamin B tablets (that one was scary but only gave him a bad bout of diarrhea)
50 multivitamin tabs (even scarier but no effect whatsoever)

And then he moved on to any plastic he could get his teeth on, and destroying any cupboard he had access to

This behavior ranges from annoying to downright dangerous so Doug turned in his "Free to Roam" card after a month of trying to curb these behaviors. I've rehabbed many dogs that were raised in kennels but Doug was the first that just didn't get that when we said "no", we meant "no" even when we weren't watching!

My puppies get about one to two months of inside training, when they learn all about people and their weird doings, plus the various no-nos connected with them. During this time pup goes with me everywhere if possible. Then the crate starts getting introduced slowly, then the outside kennel, until they are comfy in all circumstances. This makes vets LOVE my dogs, by the way. []

I have many dogs with a couple of career tracks so at this point, pup gets assigned to a buddy. Usually opposite sex, spayed or neutered, with similiar interests. The buddy system prevents any one dog from getting lost in the pack - it's something I started to manage multiple fosters. I'm not detail oriented so it helps me keep track of things.

Kitty litter, ukk!!

I only crate when we're gone. when I sleep, Knox sleeps with me.

I crate trained Jessie when she was a puppy until we got through the chewing phase. She was maybe ten months old when I got her, already house broken for the most part, so I only had to crate her for a couple of months. Once I trusted her not to destroy stuff/soil the house/eat the cats, I let her enjoy the whole house.

For one thing, I wanted the protection factor of having a dog that people could occasionally see in the window (living alone, I was a little paranoid about home invaders). For another, I really didn't want a huge crate in my tiny living room forever (to have a crate big enough for a hundred pound dog means not having room for much else...I used to throw a table cloth over it at parties to disguise it/provide a landing zone for hors d'oevres during parties, but on a day to day basis, it pretty much took up most of the room, which is tough because my house is REALLY SMALL). I also tend to work long hours, so I didn't want my very active dog to not be able to walk around for that many hours at a stretch (I figure if she can chase the cats around for a bit while I'm gone, that's that much less exercise I have to give her when I get home).

Her crate has been "retired" to the garage for the past several years, though we take it with us for travel, and I like having it around in case I ever need it. And she's fine being crated when she boards or daycares-that-runs-into-nightcare. But I still prefer not to crate her unless I need to -- and I haven't had any real reason to crate her at home. Of course if she were destructive, still chewing stuff or incontinent I might think differently.

I guess it depends on the dog you have. For me, in an ideal world, the dog is crate trained for when you need it, but gets free run of the house as a rule. But this doesn't work for every dog.

Jan

Madi was in the crate any time I left the house for the first year and a half.  As you know shepherds really don't grow up until after two.  That first year is hard.  But once she passed the psycho stage we gradually let her out.  She is 8 now and doesn't even own her crate anymore.  We passed it onto another shepherd puppy when Madi turned 4.  As for the size bed she had and extra large crate next to my side of the bed.  We were going to put a 4' x4' pen in the basement when we lived in Missouri. It was cool and she could stay in there during the day.  Then a saw a neighbors house burn down and we could not get the animals out.  I would have lost her.  Atleast now I know if something happens she is not trapped.  Our house has an alarm and all the fire alarms are in a direct link to the company.  They also know to look for our two kids.  On a positive note: Madi is terrified of smoke, any time the alarm goes off from the broiler she makes a direct bee line for the back door. 
 
Long story short, you need to do what is best for "your" kids.  You obviously care, other wise you would  not even ask!

ORIGINAL: Xeph

I don't allow my dog's free run of the house ever?  I seem to be the only one that does not allow her dogs to roam free when I'm away/asleep.

They're in their crates when I'm out of the house for more than a few minutes, and they aren't allowed to sleep free either.

Am I weird or summat?

I'm the same.
In fact, Ella is so good that we tried allowing her to sleep one night out of her crate and she just paced from the living room to our bedroom. She didn't know what to do! I crate her when I take a shower, if I have to go down to my basement (she won't go down our stairs by herself yet), if I am cleaning the house. I know that sounds like a lot of crate time, but it's not. She's barely crated. I'm usually home with her. Oh, and I crate her for these reasons because if I'm downstairs doing laundry, my kids go in and out of the house and I don't want her to get out of the house AND I don't leave my children unsupervised around her.
So, no, I don't think you're weird at all.